[TowerTalk] TOWER HEATER???

[Joe - WDØM]

Having lived in Alaska for many years, we never even thought about heating 
a tower.....antennas may suffer from time-to-time.  For a picture of the 
impact of icing on antennas and towers, check my old WL7M web site - the 
picture is toward the bottom of the page.....scroll down to find it....

http://www.xyz.net/~joe/

It survived fine, despite having about 3 inches of ICE on it......

I agree with Roger....we basically do nothing.  Nature takes care of 
it.  If you go out and bang the tower with a hammer or 2x4 section, you're 
going to have to run fast or the ice will hit you as it falls - not a good 
thing to do.....leave it alone.

73,
Joe
WDØM
(ex-WL7M)


At 09:06 AM 11/2/2004, Tower (K8RI) wrote:



>>What is the best way (IF any) to keep your tower from icing
>>in the winter???
>>You Canadian boys found a way to prevent this yet??
>
>Towers really don't ice up in the winter *except* during an ice 
>storm.  It's far harder on the antennas than the tower.
>
>We had an ice storm (believe it was in 76) that took out over a mile of 
>power line just to the West of me.  The lines had over 3" of ice on them. 
>In the wind it busted off every one of those poles.  We had a maximum spam 
>feeding the power pole. The lines coming up to the poles had stretched to 
>the point where the bottom of the catenary was only 3' off the ground 
>*after* the ice had melted.
>
>I didn't lose a single tower of antenna, but they looked pretty sick with 
>all the ice on them. When the ice fell off they straightened right back up.
>
>When the rain starts freezing I do occasionally think of what I might 
>possibly do to prevent it, or get rid of it.
>
>But the straight answer is, nornmally we do nothing.
>
>Roger Halstead (K8RI, EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
>N833R, World's Oldest Debonair (S# CD-2)
>www.rogerhalstead.com